


Lykon Copley, A Regularly Reincarnated Drabble

by RayByAnotherName



Series: Regularly Reincarnated [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mother-Son Relationship, Twitch Live Writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:48:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28204881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RayByAnotherName/pseuds/RayByAnotherName
Summary: Lykon has had a few mothers in his many lives. Most of them died young, some when he was born. It was the nature of the world at the time. There was one, however, that survived him.Lykon Copley and his relationship with his mother, and how he deals with her death.
Relationships: Lykon & His Mom, Lykon & Nile
Series: Regularly Reincarnated [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2066181
Kudos: 12





	Lykon Copley, A Regularly Reincarnated Drabble

**Author's Note:**

> This is a drabble in the sense that I essentially just kept writing it until it felt done. I planned nothing, but I'm really happy with how it turned out. 
> 
> Wrote most of it on a twitch live-stream after it sat in my WIPs for months!

Lykon has had a few mothers in his many lives. Most of them died young, some when he was born. It was the nature of the world at the time. Or so his various guardians had told him when he’d asked each time.

“Ah, that is the price, sometimes, of bringing new life into the world.” “A woman’s body, it is made to give life, but sometimes, it is not strong enough to sustain itself at the same time.”

The answers were worded differently every time, but in Lykon’s head they all sounded the same, like wind cutting through him. He recognized that sound after a few lives spent with a spear in his hand. It was the sound of life ending, of sharpness flying through the air.

There was one, however, that survived him. She did it twice actually. Centuries apart. She was a kind woman, her hair in every life was full of tight curls and laughter. Her nose would wrinkle and scrunch up her face when she told the gross part of a story. And her voice was the wind, wrapping around him, curling through the air like music.

Heloise Copley spoke lightly in English, but in her first tongue she was boisterous and sharp so Lykon had learned French right alongside his father's language. Her singing was melodic and deep. When he was older and he heard the sound of a cello for the first time, he heard his mother more than he heard the song. Her angry words were like the spears of his old lives, and they tore through him with an efficiency he didn’t understand.

“You knew better! Your actions shame yourself and they shame me!” hurt worse than that one time he’d been stoned to death. Lykon had collapsed into himself when he heard it, any fight or defense he’d planned had been plucked from his mind as he wrapped his arms around himself and began to cry. Heloise had clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and promptly wrapped her arms around him, consoling him even as she continued her discipline. “No tears now,” she’d scoffed lightly, head shaking before she kissed the top of his head, “I love you more than the breath in my own lungs, Lykon, this will not change that.”

James Copley knew he mishandled his wife getting sick, but he did not compare to how he mishandled her death. Lykon had loved his mother, as most children do, but when he grieved for Heloise he grieved for every mother he had never gotten to meet as well. Which, for a reckless and rambunctious boy like Lykon, looked very much like him lashing out at anyone who dared speak ill of a mother. 

“Not everyone has a mom like yours, Lykon,” James tried to explain to his angry teenage son as he pressed the ice pack against his son’s bruised jaw. Lykon huffed and took hold of the ice pack himself. He held it with a scowl and James sighed, “Your mother wouldn’t approve of this behavior.”  
It was a low blow. They both knew it. Neither of them knew it was going to be the last thing James said to his son for several years. 

Lykon visited his mother's grave before he left town. James found the flowers and the note Lykon left her when he went searching for his son. He found the journal of notes when he searched the boy’s room, and it’s basically impossible to hide your search history from a man like Copley. 

The other reincarnated are easy enough to pinpoint - Joe and Nicky in Rio, Booker in Marseilles, Andy and Quynh in London - the hard part is figuring out which one his sixteen year old is running to. The answer is, unfortunately, none. 

Copley brings the five of them together, helps them connect the dots between all their lives. He realizes pretty quickly what their purpose is.  
“Are you telling me we get reincarnated every life to save the world?” Andy is deadpan and Copley hears the disdain dripping from her tone. He’s not crazy though, and when he shows his research, well, even Andy can’t deny their impact when it’s staring her in the face. 

Booker, the melancholy alcoholic, takes the realization the best. “There’s finally a fucking reason for all this!” While Quynh flat out refuses to acknowledge the discovery. “We did all that just by trying to live our lives, if we start *trying* to influence the way of things, we may not have the impact that we intend.” 

None of this helps James find his son, but it does give him something to deal with each time he runs into another deadend. Because, apparently, Lykon had been paying attention to all his spycraft a little more than James had known. 

“Hmm, he’s quite good isn’t he?” Nicky comments one day after he finds James’ wall of connections, “Good enough to do it for a living even.”  
Lykon is doing it for a living, because food is important and hiding his identity turns out to be a great distraction when you’re avoiding said identity. Unfortunately for him, that drops him right into the path of one Nile Freeman. The last of the reincarnated. 

“We’ve met before,” Nile narrows her eyes on Lykon when they meet on base in Afghanistan. He startles, his entire body going rigid as Nile draws closer. She smiles at him, “Yeah. It’s been a few lifetimes, but I’d recognize that crazy look in your eye anywhere.” 

Nile swats his arm when he comes back from every mission, even though she has no idea what he got up to while he was away. 

“I don’t need to know. You’re you, so you did something reckless.” Nile smiles while she says it, but Lykon can feel her frustration radiating off of her in waves. 

“Don’t worry, I choose my moments of recklessness very carefully,” Lykon grins at her. She raises a brow. He ducks his head, “My mother made sure of it.” He doesn’t see Nile’s face freeze or her eyes widen in shock because he’s already running off to take on his next mission. 

By the time he gets back, Nile is cold and her body is being shipped back to her mother. When he decides to leave, to slip away and forget another identity, he is immediately stopped by Nile’s marines. In every life Nile surrounded herself with good people, stubborn people. This one was no exception.

“We, uh, we wrote a letter for her mom, put in a few pictures,” Dizzy hands him the envelope and with the whole squad looking at him, she asks, “Can you get it to her? We can’t get leave for her funeral, but… you’re leaving anyway right?” 

The funeral is quiet. There’s lots of people there, but they’re each silently crying or staring resolutely at the casket. The 21 gun salute hits him like a blast wave, the sound echoes in his head. Lykon crumbles. He curls around himself, sobbing.

“Oh, no tears now, love,” a pair of arms wrap around him. The woman rocks him slowly, “She meant the world to us all, but she’d want us to be strong.” It takes a few minutes, but Lykon composes himself, and when he looks up he finds himself looking into the tear-streaked face of Nile’s mother. She pats his cheek, “Do you have anyone that can take you home, young man?” 

James Copley is startled awake in London by the sound of his phone. He pulls it to his ear and answers it gruffly. A sniffling voice on the other side laughs, “Hey dad. Could you come get me?”

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to join me for my next attempt at live writing on twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/raybyanothername


End file.
